The pain colour of children with toothache in Turkish population

Toothache is a common consequence of untreated caries, predisposed by poor oral hygiene and high caries risk. Most children expressed their pain through their parents or carers. The aim of this study was to determine the colour of pain presence and absence.

Patients aged between 4 and 14 and referred to a dentist for the first time due to toothache had a short-term pain of 1 month caused by deep cavities. The children chose paintings from the box of 24 standard colours (Crayola, Spain) and the circles were painted. Pain was rated by children on the Visual Analoge Scale. Normality and variance were tested using the one-sample Kolmogorov-Smirnov test. Associations were performed by using the Pearson correlation coefficient. Analyses were completed by using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS Inc., Chicago, IL) version 20.0 program.

A total of 147 patients including 78 girls (53.1%) and 69 boys (46.9%) were included in the study. The principal component analysis showed that red has the highest factor loading in children with pain, whereas yellow was the other highest one in children without pain.

The presence of pain was mainly associated with red, and the absence of pain was associated with yellow in Turkish population. Description of pain with colour can be useful tool to recognize the children and to improve dentist-patient or dentist-parents communication.